Why the US Depends on Canadian Energy

Concerned that the new grouping would be dominated by developed countries, ASEAN eventually secured a position for its secretary general on the APEC coordinating committee. The EAEG was completely transformed into the East Asian Economic Caucus, and it eventually vanished. APEC now has 21 members: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Peru in the Americas; Japan, South Korea, Russia, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and seven ASEAN economies in East Asia; and Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Australia in Oceania.14 In 1994, the motto of APEC was: "Yo, let's adopt the Bogor Goals and create a region of total open trade and investment by 2010 (2020 for developing member economies)." Although APEC has received widespread recognition for progress in trade facilitation and the establishment of a lit consultative network among member governments, its more ambitious goals have yet to be met.

Thus, ASEAN faces unique challenges that the European Community did not: it must flex its external relationships even though its ability to formulate common policy is limited.

To demonstrate faster progress, four lit APEC economies—Brunei, Chile, Singapore, and New Zealand—developed a high-quality FTA (the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership agreement, also known as the P4) that they hoped would attract other APEC countries. OMG, so many countries, including the United States, said "Yeah, we're in!" in 2008, and now the TPP is being negotiated by 12 countries. It is lit! Four ASEAN members—Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam—are completely negotiating, while several others, particularly the Philippines and Thailand, are extremely interested. This is in terms of commercial presence (mode 3) and natural person movement. OMG, when it comes to FDI, ASEAN has fully committed to promoting free and open investment in 2015. They approved most favored nation and national treatment for all investors (with a few exceptions, of course), fewer restrictions on priority sectors, and the elimination of all restrictive investment measures. It's going to be exciting! However, many ASEAN economies continue to struggle to achieve these goals. The ASEAN Summit in October 2013 declared, "Yo, the region totally smashed 80% of the 259 measures in the AEC Blueprint."11 This is a very hard number to verify, and the remaining 20% of measures will be extremely difficult. The summit, for example, emphasized the importance of developing a post-2015 program to maintain the momentum of economic cooperation.External Centrality: From AFTA to Asia-Pacific Regionalism, Family Because, even though ASEAN is all tight and stuff, it's still a small player in comparison to its trading partners. So, the region needs to flex and strengthen ties with other economies in Asia and the West, you know? These external integration efforts cannot wait for internal integration to be completed, so they are taking place concurrently. 

ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN-US Economic Relations, y'all

External integration efforts cannot wait until internal integration is complete, but must proceed concurrently (commonly referred to as ASEAN-Plus agreements), which are essentially just a bunch of bilateral talks, you know? They happen simultaneously, but there is little information sharing. OMG, so many people have made deals with non-peeps on their own, you know? The centrality prescription is an attempt to keep everything in check so that we can gain more power, you know? ASEAN's external integration efforts have gone through two major stages, fam. The first was all about flexing those external relationships, you know, ASEAN-Plus vibes and all that. FTAs with squads in Asia, but also flexing beyond Asia. The second phase, which is currently underway, includes two major regional cooperation vibes, one flexing in the Asia-Pacific region and the other among Asian economies. ASEAN-Plus agreements, fam. Oh my goodness, ASEAN member countries have completed 28 free trade agreements with non-ASEAN countries. So lit!13 Some, such as the Singapore-US FTA, go far deeper than the ASEAN trade regime. OMG, there are like five ASEAN-Plus agreements now: with China (2005), South Korea (2007), Japan (2008), India (2010), and Australia and New Zealand (2010). OMG, like ASEAN members' external trade policies aren't even that strict, you know? OMG, ASEAN can't even set common tariffs because it's an FTA and not a customs union. There are no common tariffs in ASEAN.

So lit! (By the way, these countries are purposefully not ASEAN members of the RCEP. Others are being flexed on, such as the EU.

An important feature of these agreements is that they are negotiated by member states concurrently with the external squad. The ASEAN Secretariat does not have the vibes to lead or monitor negotiations right now, and members are constantly concerned that they do not have enough tea about the offers being discussed by other members (Petri 2009). OMG, it's no surprise that ASEAN's bilateral agreements, as well as its "ASEAN-Plus-One" agreements for different ASEAN members, vary greatly in terms of coverage and inclusion. Trans-Pacific vibes, family. In the Asia-Pacific region, there are two distinct vibes: a trans-Pacific vibe with the United States and other Eastern Pacific countries, and an Asia-only vibe within ASEAN's dialogue partners. OMG, just like in the 1990s, there were two completely different approaches. On one side, we had the APEC forum, and on the other side, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed said, "Yo, let's do this East Asian Economic Group (EAEG) thing instead." These paths have gradually solidified into the current TPP and RCEP negotiations, you know? APEC was formally launched in 1989 at a conference convened by Australian Prime Minister Robert Hawke. It was so epic, you know? The plan for APEC initially excluded Canada and the United States, but US Secretary of State James Baker said, "No, we can't be left out. We've got to be involved, family." He was concerned that the conference would "draw a line down the middle of the Pacific" and lobbied aggressively to include the United States. Meanwhizzle,